Lawrence Ypil (b. 1978)

SELECTED POEMS

Childhood

As when there was always something to be done:
Run the long yard. Hide the white sigh.
A red carpeted jump over the steps of stairs.
The soul asleep beside the body.

To be young was to love the blue intimacies,
Something tied like a knot 
Tumbling through the thorned bush,
Gathering quick the small keeps.

The birds asleep beside the strong wind.
So I made a pact with the green angels
Holding still the shattered pinion
Of their will against the marble

Of my eye beyond all treachery.
Bright house of a large and all the cutlery.
Still, an honest hide it was this pleasure still—
Displeasure’s still. As when it was beginning to be dark—

The day asleep beside the reckless rush home.
Jump from the highest hiding place.
Knife through the lonely run.
As when the promise of a waiting small’s long kept.

Porch

Because it was what we thought
was meant by family: Laughter.
A new house. A party in the garden
where the tables were filled with young faces.

Who did not want this true
and tender accomplishment? This just
reward handed over to the world’s honest men, 
its citizens. Every house

rested on its joys. So when one of the guests
nudged a glass when she was telling a joke
which fell on the floor and broke,

we laughed. We were accountable 
merely for our own mistakes and
committedd solely. And everything was
part of the good story, really.

How could we not love what it cost?
Crack on the marble floor just set,
dent on a polished
kitchen door. A small window
overlooks the children, one nimble,
one frail, balancing on the far
edge of the porch.

by Lawrence Ypil
from The Highest Hiding Place: Poems (2009)

 

SELECTED POEMS: “Aria” >